PCOS: The most misrepresented syndrome on earth?
This week’s piece of questionable journalism came in the form of a reported “fact” in a print edition of a London daily. In an article about a woman who more than halved her body weight from 24st, the writer reported that “she said her weight ballooned after she was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome”. Well, just because she said something so mindlessly daft, it doesn’t mean you need to repeat it for the benefit of the English capital…
I’ve read an awful lot of rubbish about PCOS; this statement alone has two fundamental things wrong with it.
1. Surely if the PCOS had caused her to gain weight, it would have been BEFORE she was diagnosed and knew about it?
2. PCOS has recently been linked to insulin intolerance and Type 2 diabetes. It is known to make weight loss difficult and be related to weight gain. However, 24st is not caused by polycystic ovarian syndrome. It’s caused by polycake ingestion syndrome. She knows it, I (a 12st, always big, girl) know it.
I’m not knocking how difficult it must have been for this woman to shift the weight. Since losing weight is a good way to reduce the symptoms of PCOS for many, I totally applaud her efforts. But I’m sick to death of lazy reportage of a condition that has taken control of many lives, even mine to a small extent, though I have a mild case of it.
Here comes the science bit: PCOS is a condition that affects the menstrual cycle, where tiny cysts on the surface of the ovaries play havoc with your period hormones. The common symptom shared by all sufferers is that of irregular periods. I might have two a month or none for three months. Once I had a period that trickled on (forgive me) for 31 days, finally ended by being prescribed medication more usually used for endometriosis. I was tired of this unpredictable, draining routine and at sixteen years old my condition was confirmed by blood test and I was put on the contraceptive pill.
The reading about PCOS on the Internet makes it sound deadly, grim and depressing - sometimes, I believe, needlessly so. Severe cases can lead to infertility (one of the reasons for being on the Pill is that it suspends your ability to ovulate, putting your cycle into a form of protective, temporary stasis to all intents and purposes), symptoms can include struggling with weight, acne and excessive body hair.
Weight is a big bugbear as it’s unclear which way round the correlation works. Does PCOS cause fat or vice versa? The proportion of clinically overweight women with PCOS is very high – I was 16st when diagnosed, very heavy for a teenager. There is also evidence to suggest that it’s linked to increased likelihood of diabetes and heart disease. And yet there is a healthy proportion of women who are of normal or low weight with the condition, including Victoria Beckham.
Mrs. Beckham didn’t do girls with PCOS any favours by claiming that pregnancy “burst” her cysts and was responsible for her skeletal weight later. Pregnancy can, temporarily or long term, relieve the symptoms of PCOS, but it is not necessarily a cure at all. Going from being already slim to having a waist the size of the average eleven-year-old’s takes a lot of work even if you don’t have a hormonal beastie making you crave sugar. It’s a mistake to think that just getting up the duff is going to sort it all, although in severe cases, such as my cousin’s, doctors have been known to suggest having children earlier rather than later in life so as not to ride your reproductive luck on the Pill for too long.
Taking the Pill comes with its own risks and benefits. It’s great to be able to double it up as a contraceptive, and it means that I can control when I bleed and perhaps be afforded some extra protection from certain cancers. But being among the low percentage of women who have taken it for over eight years (11 at last count), I’m also at risk from increased likelihood of others, blood clots and so forth. It’s a personal choice.
I was fortunate to only ever have the requisite amount of body hair, but that meant that taking the Pill made my already fine hair even more so. Nothing that a blob of volumising mousse can’t fix, but an irritating side effect. I took Dianette, which gave me leg cramps, then Cilest for years, which I’m hoping to change for something like Yasmin due to recently increased mood swings which suggest the oestrogen content is now too high for me. Luckily, I never had acne. Over the years I’ve peeled off four stone slowly and painfully because I knew it might reduce symptoms, and it did. I’ll never be thin because I like food and I don’t like exercise. But I’m in no way going to blame this on the PCOS; it's more likely to be growing up in a Greek family where food and love go hand in hand!
If your periods are irregular and you’re feeling tired and fed up about it, go and see your gynaecologist. It’s diagnosed by ultrasound inspection of your ovaries and sometimes confirmed by a simple blood test to map out your hormones. Knowing what you have can give you a starting point for controlling your condition, be it a low-GI diet to control your insulin and lose weight or just going on the Pill to give yourself some peace of mind. PCOS is nothing to be scared of, but lazy reporting has made it seem like a condition that turns you into some heaving, hairy, barely female yeti overnight. Trust me on this, it really doesn’t.
Alex Roumbas is Deputy Editor of Shiny Shiny. She's setting the record straight for the benefit of her own sanity.
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